The influenza epidemic of 1918–20 was one of the deadliest events in recent human history, killing at least fifty million people worldwide and at least 675,000 Americans in just two years. Yet, because of government censorship during the pandemic and a lasting cultural silence about the flu, we still have a great deal to learn about this period. In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, remembering the experience of the Spanish flu has become especially urgent. This essay argues that motion picture fan magazines, many of which are available digitally through the Media History Digital Library, are crucial archives of women’s experiences during the pandemic. Interactive sections of these publications gave readers—especially women and girls—rare opportunities to publicly share their own experiences with the flu. Celebrity “convalescing profiles” expressed anxieties and established expectations for women during the flu pandemic. Revisiting these publications today reveals the importance of celebrity and sites of fan engagement in forging ideas about illness and health.
Convalescing Profiles: Fan Magazines and Women’s Stories of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic, 1918–1920
Carolyn Condon Jacobs recently received her PhD in Film and Media Studies and American Studies at Yale University. Beginning in the fall of 2023, she will be an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Central Connecticut State University. Her first book project, based on a dissertation entitled “Sanitizing Cinema: Public Health and the Regulation of American Motion Pictures, 1896–1920,” considers the effects of health emergencies and the official measures they engendered on the development of cinema in the United States. Her work has been published in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Screen, the Women Film Pioneers Project, and In Media Res.
Carolyn Condon Jacobs; Convalescing Profiles: Fan Magazines and Women’s Stories of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic, 1918–1920. Feminist Media Histories 1 July 2023; 9 (3): 31–49. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2023.9.3.31
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University of California Press